Husband-Wife 2017 Financial and Family Planning

As moms, we tend to do our planning at the beginning of the year all by ourselves, right? We jot down our daily or monthly things to accom...

As moms, we tend to do our planning at the beginning of the year all by ourselves, right? We jot down our daily or monthly things to accomplish for the household, for the kids, for the whole family. We sometimes leave out our husbands because we think it’s not their thing to do the planning activity. I’m guilty about this, and probably I may the only one among you reading this post, but good news! I put an end to this solo activity last January 2, before going back to work.

I involved my husband finally! But I conditioned him a week or 2 before our planning date night. Let me tell you as early as now before spilling the juicy details, that it was an awesome experience!
How I planned the planning date night.

After receiving our bonuses, spending for Christmas gifts shopping, and listing down other expenses and 2017 receivables, I told him that it would be a good idea to list down everything together and plan our expenses for the year. He would usually tell me, “Kaya mo na yan, you know my income, my expenses. Love you!” Ok naman ang rejection kasi may I love you sa dulo. But still, I had to find a way to make him cooperate, so I reminded him that Damien will turn 1 year old and Wes, 7 years old, milestones which we have to celebrate. Celebration means a lot to him and that became a bait. So ayun, he asked, “Sige, game, kelan?!”

Let me share with you how we started. First, order pizza and beer. As most of our loko-loko friends say “Pag may alak, may balak!” Yeah, may balak kami mag-planning talaga for 2017 and celebrate a milestone in our marriage because we’ve both matured to commit to our planning date night.

Second order of business, do the math. The goal is to know if we’re living within our means or not and what miracle is happening that we’ve managed to survive our 2016 expenses. Let me hare with you how to check your financial health. The result that we all want is to know that we’re not deficit in terms of income vs. spending. Thankfully, we’re okay.

SECOND STEP: COMPUTE
Next step is to identify your combined monthly cash flow and see if you're financially in the pink of health or if you're deficit. Of course we want to see a healthy result and not otherwise.

Subtract your combined fixed monthly expenses and discretionary expenses from your fixed income. What's the result? Do you still have balance? Or is it negative? If it's negative and you're wondering where you got the money to pay off your major expenses (school tuition fees, summer activity fees, travel expense, etc), take a look at your combined income from sidelines and bonuses. Did they cover all these expenses?

STEP THREE: IDENTIFY IF YOU'RE LIVING WITHIN YOUR MEANS OR NOT
It's a good activity to see if you're living within your means, if you're spending less than you earn or otherwise, if you're spending too much on discretionary expenses, if you still have room for savings and investments, if you could still need to look for sidelines (should you happen to rely entirely on your fixed incomes) or if you're doing okay. The activity will reveal a lot about your spending and saving characteristics and how you could improve in this area by working together.

After computing, we high-fived each other for working together as a good tandem in keeping the family financially stable. We realized that where we spent too much and that we could have actually saved more, which we committed to do this year.

We also listed down our passions and talked about how we could monetize these (I'll talk about this on another post soon). We listed our dreams to put up a business, diversifying investments and other extra money plans. Our goal is to save and invest as much as we can, so it's really important to spend less than we earn.

PLANS FOR OURSELVES & THE FAMILY
Moving from the income and expense computation, the next steps in our date night were exciting. We talked about the spiritual aspect of our family, marriage/relationship, sex and date nights, parenting our kids, dream travel destinations, health and fitness goals, and individual goals.

In this digital age, I still believe in the classic and effective practice of writing it down and making things happen. Also to ensure that the date night planning didn't just happen like an event, we also wrote down our action plans, which we're both seriously committed to achieve

A WEEK AFTER...
After knowing the expense areas where we could save (food and gas), I've been bringing lunch and snacks baon to work. We also made some adjustments to our routes so we could also save on gas. We even started our daily expense sheet so we could monitor our expenses closely and know exactly where our hard-earned money goes to. So far, it's doing us both really good because not only we save money on food, we eat more healthily because it's "lutong bahay" and we avoid food wastes at home.

On marriage and family matters, we've been more intentional to each other and in pareting our kids. Quite surprisingly, he already asked me out on another date, watch a musical with him! Kinilig ako slight! :) So far so good and I hope we achieve all the goals we listed in the different areas of our lives. It makes me extremely happy.

I highly recommend a husband-wife tandem on financial and family planning. Two heads are better than one definitely.

~How about you? How do you do your new year planning? Do you do it alone or have been doing it with your husband? How's the experience? Could you share any tips below?~

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Hi Louise,Congratulations on checking your financial health and sharing it, it's a good idea to see where the money comes from, where it goes and how much is left. Just want to add, while you're at it, it's also important to determine your Financial Goals, this will help you visualize how far/near you are for your goals, it may be a short term (settle all card debts) medium term (new car) long term (retirement, college fund), the good thing about finances is that it can be measured easily as it's all numbers with peso sign. The goals will give meaning to your savings, what's it for, how much is needed and when it will be needed. Good luck. Ramen next week? - Dennis Manzarate, Sun Life Financial Advisor, RFP®

Wow! Kudos to your effort to lure your hubby into your planning session. Financial planning I agree is very crucial in any scenario- single, married or solo parent. Your tips are very helpful and the way you shared this experience is inspiring too. (macy santos)

My husband and I have been doing this since 2013! We were in a financial rut so we thought we'd plan our finances to better manage them. In fairness, four years later, we're doing really great! We've ticked off a lot of our important must buy/pay items!

Open and frequent discussion between me and my husband garners trust. We achieve that with each other by talking frequently and sharing some financial goals before deciding on our own or even consulting a financial professional who can provide objective and proactive advice. :)

I've been telling my husband that we talk about something like this but like you, "kaya ko na daw yun" Lol! Or sometimes we'll be good sa umpisa and then, wala na. Nawala na naman sa budget. Hopefully this 2017, we'll be more responsible when it comes to money. Thanks for this! Kulitin ko ulit si husband ko haha

He gives me his salary and I do most of the planning. He is so bad at budgeting and we would probably end up broke if he is given a free hand. I think I am quite gifted at it too. He would be ofter surprised we have a lot a extra money left for entertainment and travel after deducting savings and fixed expenses.

I usually set goals for myself, but my husband and I always take time to sit down and discuss what we plan to do and achieve every year :) No writing and math involved, but we both know our goals and so far, it worked for us :) Great tips btw :)

I feel like I also need to do this with Bobby since we haven't had a proper way of doing this hahaha! Thanks for this insightful post and for teaching me how to plan right with my own family. Miss you and hope we get to do our coffee date soon!

It really is a must to plan with the hubby, especially about budget and finance. Nothing is more frustrating that vowing to save up this year then suddenly your partner comes home with a brand new PS4 unit! Haha. Hopefully, we can practice this, too, because IMHO, ze hub is more of a shopaholic that I am! But please don't tell him I tell you! Haha! :P

Such a nice way to welcome 2017. I do my own planning and I am confident my husband does the same. But upon reading this, I have seen the beauty and the advantage of doing it together. It isnt too late though to ask my husband to make our own together.

Congratulations, sis, for successfully convincing your husband to do the family's financial planning with you! I'd love to try that, but I will definitely have a harder time convincing hubby to do the same. Lol!

I have to admit that hubby and I haven't really sat down together like this to discuss financial planning. We do talk about it often but not in a meeting type of set up. Sometimes I make some computations and present it to him so that i can get his input. But those are only for short term financial issues. We should really think more long term.

My husband and I we always talk about this specially our financial status. We sat down and right down our possible income and expenses for the whole year. After that we pray together and asked wisdom from God. Kasi talagang ang hirap pagdating sa financial aspects marami din nag aaway na mag asawa dahil jan, and also about our marriage life. I think all of the above mentioned are very important things.

Hello, I'm Louise

Welcome to my blog! I write about my practical life as a mother of three talented and handsome boys, as an ex-single mom and now a happily married woman to my long-time best friend and soulmate, as a former corporate marketing specialist, and as a life adventurer! Welcome to Mommy Practicality!

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